


Toil and Trouble

by Artemis1000



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Deal with a Devil, Empire wins, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: The war is lost, the Empire uncontested. When hope has proven too weak to stand a chance against evil, Cassian and Bodhi live - or they exist, something akin to living - for vengeance in a world where nothing else is left.What do you want?Not this.





	Toil and Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 4 "Toil and Trouble" of 13 Days of Sniperpilot Halloween.
> 
> A hint of a Babylon 5 crossover has snuck into this story, if you catch it you are welcome to read it as an actual crossover or just as a homage to my favorite spooky villains in science-fiction.

“Look at us, still around when everybody else is gone, it must truly be the darkest possible timeline” Cassian had told Bodhi soon after the Empire had crushed the last vestiges of the Rebel Alliance.

Bodhi knew he had meant it as a joke. Their jokes had just turned dark along with the rest of the galaxy. He had been much younger, a teenage boy still, when he had learned there was more truth to dark jokes than you could bear. The years since had only driven that lesson home time and again.

He had laughed and kissed Cassian, telling him, “You’re being melodramatic,” for that hurt less than to agree.

As he observed through the scope of the sniper’s rifle and felt no regret, only a strange wistfulness for the regret he knew he should have felt while calmly waiting for the most convenient moment to end a man’s life, he wondered if there had been more truth to Cassian’s joke than he would like to admit.

The Bodhi who had met Cassian had chosen to bet everything, even his very life, on a flimsy hope.

That Bodhi Rook had been a very different man. A different man for a different world.

That man had thought his love could pull Cassian out of the darkness. Then the Rebellion had fallen, hunted down cell for cell, outpost for outpost. He had stood by and watched his comrades slaughtered, had watched the executions celebrated on the Holonet, their memory slandered and distorted until nothing remained of the people they had been.

He had learned how little _hope_ could do against the military might of an Empire.

His comm buzzed with Cassian’s signal.

Bodhi pulled the trigger.

He didn’t stay to watch, he never did. The price was paid, the contract fulfilled.

 

* * *

 

Getting out proved easy enough, Cassian cleared the path well. That was why Bodhi was usually the one firing the killing shots these days, Cassian’s experience and ruthlessness served them better in clearing the escape path.

It was almost eerie how easy it had gotten. It was a thought he shared with Cassian, later when they were watching through the bulk hole as the planet was becoming ever smaller. “It’s become routine,” he added, disquiet in his dark eyes.

Cassian looked up. He looked kind, which was the worst look he could sport when Bodhi did not want Cassian’s kindness to remind him of how little he deserved it anymore. “It has to be. We have a long list to work through before it is over.”

“Before it is over,” Bodhi echoed and felt that pang of regret he had been unable to muster while he held the rifle.

He looked down at his hands. “I believe I remember that I wanted it to be over,” he murmured, frown deepening as he tried to remember how he had felt. “Before.”

Cassian wrapped his arms around him from behind. “We did only what we had to do. Somebody had to, and there was nobody else left.”

Bodhi leaned back against Cassian and closed his eyes. He let himself remember _before_.

The pact, the vows, the book made of leather and actual paper pages, names that burned blood-red on the pages and hot on their skin.

Lives stolen. Lives given.

“We will be around for as long as we are needed,” Cassian said, “and then we can rest.”

Bodhi thought of _before_ , of how desperately he had wanted to live when he still hoped to help create a galaxy worth living in.

That Bodhi Rook had been a very different man, indeed.

 

* * *

 

Another name gone from the list, an invisible, never quieting burning vanished from his skin.

Sometimes, Bodhi dreamed of the night when his life had changed.

Sometimes, he heard the man asking him _what do you want?_ gave him a different answer – asking for his grief to be healed, for the galaxy to be freed, for anything but what he had asked for.

 _I want to make them pay_ he had said.

 _I want to know who they are so we can make them pay_ , Cassian had added, ever practical.

After all, they had known that not all Imperials were equally guilty, and their anger was for those who had orchestrated and taken sadistic delight in the destruction of the Massassi Cell and of Rogue One.

Now he dreamed of giant black spiders floating through space, and wherever they went the Empire withered and died.

He dreamed of all the bloodshed avenged, and when he woke he waited for relief, for joy, for anything at all. Yet when he awoke, he knew he had been haunted by a nightmare; and he yearned for rest.

Sometimes, he wondered if _rest_ was another lie.

Sometimes Bodhi dared look deep into Cassian’s eyes when they spoke of it, and he could see his own fears reflected in them. Then Cassian blinked, and he was back to looking like he felt barely anything at all.

Cassian had started dreaming earlier than Bodhi, as if he had been more susceptible due to the blood he had already shed. Bodhi tried not to think of what this meant for him; he had a long list of things he chose not to think about.

Sometimes Bodhi wished he could go back to being asked _what do you want?_   He would say: I want it to be over.


End file.
